
Sugar output in Brazil, the world’s largest producer and exporter, will unexpectedly fall this year after freezing weather pared crop yields, the Agriculture Ministry said on Tuesday.

Guess who is the main producer of soy beans in Brazil, the country that is the world’s second exporter of oilseed behind the United States?, a Brazilian, no an Argentine group.

Mercosur full member Argentina this week is expected to approve the use of genetically-modified soy seeds made by German company Bayer as part of its push to increase farm production, a top Argentine official said on the weekend.

Argentina is undergoing a “corn planting boom” because of its more diversified market opportunities which help to ease the full impact of the export quotas system imposed by the government of Cristina Fernandez.

Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff named on Thursday lawmaker Mendes Ribeiro as new Minister of Agriculture. The member of Congress from the farming state of Rio Grande do Sul replaces Wagner Rossi who stepped down Wednesday following strong allegations of corruption and irregularities.

South American grain and oilseed production may be in jeopardy from the formation of a La Niña weather pattern, which might curb rainfall in parts of Brazil and Argentina, Oil World said.

The Mozambique government is providing large tracts of land at a symbolic price to Brazilian farmers to produce soy, maize and cotton, Mozambique’s agriculture minister, José Pacheco told Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo.

China, the second-largest buyer of soy in the world wants an end to intermediation by US multinational companies working in the sector and plans to invest purchasing directly from farmers in Mato Grosso and another five states in Brazil, according to the Brazilian press.

The coming 2011/12 wheat crop of Argentina will reach 13.5 million tons instead of the 15 million forecasted last July, reported the US Agriculture Department, USDA.

Soybean was king of corps in Uruguay last summer with 1.5 million tons planted in 862.000 hectares and with an average yield of 1.788 kilos per ha, according to the latest data from the country’s Agriculture Statistics Office, DIEA.